Fetullah Gülen, the U.S-based ringleader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) behind the deadly July 15, 2016 coup attempt in Türkiye, has reportedly died at the age of 83 in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

FETÖ-linked accounts, including Gülen's nephews, posted messages saying he died due to cardiovascular problems. Turkish intelligence sources also confirmed his death.

Gülen was recently spotted at a new address, confirming allegations that he had been moved from his main residence earlier this year amid what has been called "infighting" in the organization.

He lived in a sprawling estate in Pennsylvania for over two decades, which he used as the headquarters of the terrorist group that orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in which 252 people were killed and over 2,700 were wounded in Türkiye. But in May this year, rumors surfaced, spurred by Gülen’s nephew Ebuseleme Gülen, that the FETÖ leader had been moved from the Chestnut Retreat Center to a new location and the center was emptied in April.

Gülen, who has been coping with serious health issues including dementia due to his advanced age, was spotted on Sunday in a rare appearance since then exiting the new house at 260 Kennel Road in Saylorsburg, 12 minutes away from the town's center.

An Anadolu Agency (AA) crew member caught a glimpse of Gülen riding in the passenger seat of a luxury SUV as it followed another luxury car out of the gates of his secluded new house, a 300-square-meter (3,229 square feet) three-bedroom that sits in the heart of a 12-hectare lush forest.

Turkish intelligence sources have confirmed the death of Gülen, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Friday in the first official reaction from Ankara following reports in the media. "The leader of this dark organization has died," Fidan told reporters in Ankara at a news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha. Fidan said that the news of Gülen’s death would "not make Türkiye lax." "This organization has been a rare source of threat in our nation’s history. It has added thousands of our youths to its ranks under the pretext of sacred values and turned them into a machine that betrays their own homeland, people and sacred values," Fidan said. He argued that FETÖ-linked people were used by foreign intelligence services as a weapon against their own homeland. Thousands of FETÖ suspects fled Türkiye in the aftermath of the coup attempt, mostly to Germany and the U.S. Fidan said he wished Gülen’s death meant the "spell" on said people were lifted and urged them to "give up this treacherous path and stop working against their own state and people." "This path doesn’t lead anywhere good," Fidan added. "Our state and nation will continue fighting against FETÖ as they do all kinds of terrorist groups." Separately, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said the fight against "this fundamental national security problem will not be limited to its ringleader and continue against all FETÖ extensions." He assured trials and international judicial mechanisms against FETÖ suspects would resume "with the same determination without being impacted by the said death."

Gülen was the main perpetrator of the failed July 15 coup attempt in Türkiye.

FETÖ is today widely known to have disguised itself as a so-called religious movement under Gülen, who was born on April 27, 1941, in Türkiye’s eastern Erzurum province. Gülen began primary school in 1946, in Erzurum and studied at the Kurşunlu Mosque madrassa in 1954.

In 1966, when he was 25, he was assigned to the western Izmir province as the main imam, it is thought that’s when he founded the Gülen Movement, which would eventually evolve into a terrorist group that mounted a coup attempt, killing at least 252 and injuring thousands in 2016. Nurettin Veren, the man who built the structure in 1966 together with Gülen and remained close friends until 1996, says about the year that "Gülen came to İzmir from Edirne as a man who had not even finished primary school. His diploma was faked so that he could be an imam as a public servant. He used to take shelter in a small mosque. This is where our paths crossed." Veren parted ways in 1996 due to Gülen's "cult-like leadership" and his supposed "deep ties with U.S. intelligence." Until 1971 Gülen served in Izmir where he formalized his operations and met some of his senior operatives. That year, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) issued a military memorandum to "restore order," and Gülen was arrested by the post-coup junta and spent seven months in prison on charges of reactionary activities. However, he was found not guilty and remained untouched later thanks to his anti-communist propaganda.

Gülen was the founder of the Anti-Communist Association in his hometown of Erzurum at the time. After that, Gülen benefited from this anti-communist discourse. He started to make state propaganda through religious means in the western province of Balıkesir. Despite the oppressive military atmosphere that hindered any political activity, Gülen benefited from protection and tried to win the favor of state authorities. Gülen started to write for the monthly Sızıntı (Leak) Islamic magazine in 1979, which was published by his followers. In the wake of the bloody 1980 coup led by Chief of General Staff Gen. Kenan Evren, who toppled the coalition government of center-right Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel, Gülen wrote an editorial for Sızıntı in which he praised the overthrow of the government. After the coup, the Constitution was suspended, people were tortured to death, political parties were closed and their leaders were questioned, prosecuted and imprisoned. In the editorial titled "The Last Outpost," Gülen praised the coup. "This is a victory by which the enemy is captured, the body (the governmen)] is cleansed of viruses and has returned to its roots," he wrote in the article, implying that the military intervention somehow helped Türkiye protect its democracy. Building influence In 1981, Gülen resigned as an imam and focused on his network with is close associates.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, FETÖ members geared up interest in business, education and media. The followers, with interest in industry, education and media, along with operatives in the judiciary, military, police and other state institutions, mobilized all their resources, including newspapers and television stations they owned to attack all that they perceived as opponents. Launching the Zaman newspaper in 1986 and Samanyolu Television in 1993, Gülenists were building a media empire from scratch as a tool to increase their political influence. At the same time, Gülen's sermons and articles were distributed across the nation. In November 1991, the first protocol was signed for FETÖ to open a high school in Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The network eventually included hundreds of schools around the world in the 1990s. His charter schools in the U.S. became one of the main funding sources for the illicit organization. Funds collected from disciples were channeled into schools, media organizations and other projects to help recruit and expand its influence. Later evidence and testimonies also show that followers began to recruit to infiltrate state institutions, such as the military, bureaucracy and judiciary at this time. Due to Turkish bureaucracy, particularly the military, branding almost all religious movements as reactionary, excluding them from state institutions in the name of secularism, FETÖ figures were stationed within the military using "taqiyya," based on hiding one's true identity to achieve a goal or remain safe, and seemed to be nonreligious to avoid exclusion. In line with this, Gülen urged his followers to infiltrate the state in a sermon that was captured on video in the early 1990s. "You have to penetrate the arteries of the system without being noticed," he said. "You have to wait for the right moment, until you have seized the entire power of the state," Gülen says in a video. Another military intervention into politics that Türkiye suffered was the postmodern coup of Feb. 28, 1997, and the democratically elected government was forced to resign. However, Gülen once again had an opportunist approach and tried to benefit from the coup, blaming the government for its failure to justify the coup. He gave interviews to pro-coup media and said: "You (The government) have failed, now quit," and: "The military is more democratic." Gülen openly commended the intervention that led to the most severe oppressive conservative society Türkiye has ever faced, and called on his followers to respect the will of the military.